Uncertainties in Bible Times and in Ours
Roy D. Merritt

            This article was planned to introduce a special issue of the Gospel Herald and to prepare the readers for positive answers to the uncertainties of life faced through history by our fathers and by us today.
            It will necessarily be somewhat negative – uncertainty is always negative – but a knowledge of God’s use of such experiences gives us a background against which the greater certainty of faith, hope and love shine even more gloriously.  These “positives” promised by our Lord will be discussed in this issue by other writers.
            The first six chapters of Genesis present a microcosm of Bible history.  Eviction from a luxurious garden home sent Adam and Eve out into the real world.  They could not have comprehended the full impact of God’s penalty for fallen man – “Dust you are and to dust you will return” (Genesis 3:19).  They could not have envisioned death.  They had never seen it before.
            The first murder occurred and the family was shocked into a dim understanding.  Holding the dead body of their beloved son in their arms made God’s prediction a reality.  All of life took on a new, uncertain quality.  From this time forward, man must live with the knowledge that, yes, life can end at an uncertain time and in an unexpected manner.  Could this happen to them?  And, if so, when? Would they have warning? Their son was so young.  Would they continue to live on?
            The warrior-king, David, a man after God’s own heart, in a similar situation broke into tears and closeted himself in his grief.  “O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom!” (2 Samuel 16:33).  He would gladly have given his own life in exchange.  But he learned that, despite his grief and his prayers, when death occurs it is final.
            Genesis also provides us with a prime example of a cataclysm – the Flood.  When mankind sinned grievously, God provided a radical remedy – a fresh start for a new generation.  He also reminded Noah (and us) that man is mortal.  Despite some incredible life-spans, the new race of man had to live with the knowledge that death, like sin, was crouching at their door, and that quiet, peaceful lives will always be under threat because of the uncertainties which surround them.
            The prospect of facing down one of the most powerful potentates of the ancient world and telling him to “Let my people go” (Exodus ch. 5 - 10), probably filled Moses with tremendous uncertainty.  He had already shown indecision and admitted that he was a man of “faltering lips” (Exodus 6:12, 30).  He was soon to stand, trapped, on the shore of the Red Sea at the head of a multitude of his people.  Talk about an uncertain situation!  He said to the people, “Be still!”  God countermanded the order and told the Israelites, “Move on!”  The chosen people of God would have fallen prey to the pursuing army had Moses’ indecision been his final decision.
            Other factors than fear and uncertainty have, at times, led God’s people into impulsive behaviour which eventually destroyed their faith in God’s ordering of affairs.  A prime example of a human substitution for God’s provisions is found in the cry, “Give us a king!” (1 Samuel 8:6) - a new generation’s decision to find its answers in human wisdom rather than God’s decree.  Their cry for a different leadership was based on their very human desire to be like their neighbours.  The results are well-known: with few exceptions the kings over God’s people led them into disobedience and eventually into apostasy and idolatry.  Every innovation not authorized by God required another innovation to support it.  God eventually had to send them into captivity where a small remnant learned to trust Him again as their true King.  How much we need to re-read the logbooks and chronicles of those pitiful, uncertain days.
            Moving forward to the New Testament, our God-given guide for the church today, we recall that both John the Baptist and Jesus the Christ began their ministries with a command and a promise.
            The command to a religious race which exalted the traditions of men was for repentance.  The promise was that Heaven would intervene in the affairs of men by providing a kingdom in the near future – a kingdom which could not be shaken.  The nature of this heavenly kingdom and the time of its arrival became perplexing puzzles behind the scene in all four Gospels.
            The Jewish leaders linked the coming of the new kingdom to their mistaken view of the promised Messiah.  Uncertainties reigned.  They would not believe so they could not understand when Jesus revealed the spiritual and eternal nature of the kingdom.
            The final deadly charge against Him as He stood in trial before Pilate concerned whether or not He really was the promised King of the Jews.  Another question was asked in the trial before Caiaphas: “Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God” (Matthew 26:63).  He answered both questions truthfully.  Shortly afterward the Sanhedrin pronounced its decision: “He is worthy of death” (Matthew 26:66).
            Even so, uncertainty still reigned.  Two of the most prominent and respected leaders among them, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, believed. 
            The period when our Lord lay in the tomb was a time of dreadful uncertainty for his grieving followers.  The lament of Cleopas and his friend on the road to Emmaus sums up as well as any the dashed hopes of those followers: “…but we had hoped that He was the one…” (Luke 24:21).
            God did not allow that bewilderment to confuse the devout disciples for long.  Forty days later, Jesus of Nazareth was declared, with God’s Holy Spirit as witness, to be both Lord and Christ.  Hallelujah!
            We begin the second part of our article with reference to the moving words of Charles Dickens as he began his Classic, “A Tale of Two Cities.”  Ours are indeed “the best of times and the worst of times.”  If we consider peace, freedom of worship and expression, elimination of some of the world’s great contagions, our easy access to education, protection, food, housing – we can rejoice and give thanks to God for the time in which we live.  It has indeed been good for a very long time.
            For those who are in Him, who give their lives over to His control, any time with our Lord and Savior is full of optimism and assurance of still better times to come.  And we do give thanks.  But we also know that we in the Western World have little reason to be smug and satisfied.
            As we write, the economic situation is one of “doom and gloom.”  Words such as foreclosure, bankruptcy, bail-out and crisis are so common we don’t shudder any more.  But underneath it all, we are scared.  The media warns about a polluted atmosphere, global warming, endangered species, crumbling arctic ice, “carbon footprints,” and so many things we don’t really understand: new problems with which the world has had no experience.  What impact will they have on our lives? And a greater fear: what impact will they have on generations not yet born?
            The writer sees two great and seemingly imminent dangers.  One is the spectre of a nuclear war just waiting for the maniacal ruler of some rogue state to press the wrong buttons.  Strikes and retaliatory strikes would leave millions dead, huge cities turned into piles of poisoned rubble, and mankind with no place to hide.          
            The second is the growing dislike of objective truth and its replacement by a mindset which says there is no such thing as absolute truth – not a sudden change but a creeping desire to put man in the position to make his own moral or immoral judgements about what is right or wrong.  The world would return to the spiritual anarchy of ancient Israel when everyone did "what was right in his own eyes" (Judges 17:6; 21:25). 
            The answers to man’s uncertainties are not to be found in a shipwreck of our ability to seek objective truth.  In a very uncertain period for his people, the weeping prophet Jeremiah voiced a still-timely warning: “I know, O Lord, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps.”