The scene before me is fairly normal for summer. There are various shades of green....from the darker maple leaf....to the lighter dappled willow....to the richer greens of blades of grass. The sky today is a powder blue....with a few white cumulus clouds....and the hospital white of the rails on the beige deck planks....and on that deck are bright reds...light and deeper purples....and brilliant yellows of the few flowers. I'm looking at a retro solar powered lantern....hanging on a wrought-iron post....and when night comes....and that lamp lights....from all physical appearances of this scene....I would be within my rights to hold it aloft as a town cryer....as I would shout....."Ten o'clock and all is well!" But all is not well.
Within the past hour I have seen two squirrels....a grinny....two pigeons....one robin and an assortment of small wild finch-type birds. The squirrels obviously play with one another...as do the small birds....who recognize me as the one who brings seeds every morning. Only the grinny is still scared of me. The squirrels might return to that part of the deck where they earlier found three peanuts....but they cannot in their mind analyze the situation beyond giving a few minutes search and then running off up a tree....and this is just one small oasis in a world of millions of similar and even greater wondrous and beautiful vistas.Man has no excuse for not seeing this as a creation....having the ability to ponder it....and even scrutinize how it came into existence....but for man to assign it to chance....is nothing but intellectual and ethical laziness....and to purposely ignore the time-honored book that...as capable and powerful as our minds might be....can fill them to capacity with great and wonderful truths....is nothing but rebellion to the God whom man denies.
That same person can gaze upon any and all of these vistas.....in total admiration....and perceive that all must be well in such glorious settings in this world....but if one dares look at the evil that man is capable of....and consider what knowledge combined with the evil can do....and not raise that lantern and shout instead...."Awake....awake....call an assembly!"....then those vistas are but food coloring and icing on a stone-cold cake.
I've come across the meme a number of times in the past week....and surely you will have also....the ad from Barbie....with her in the front seat of a pink convertible....Ken sideways in the back seat....and a beautiful vista.....maybe of Oppenheimer's beloved New Mexico....in the distant background....and a rainbow arched overhead....only in the meme....J. Robert Oppenheimer replaces Ken in the back seat. It's a very imaginative meme....the only thing missing would be a mushroom cloud above Oppenheimer.
Here would be an equally odd scene....evangelicals sitting around in a circle chatting....and the topic of God's judgement somehow comes up....(It wouldn't come from me....for they don't want me in their circles)....and one speaks up....."Maybe if we just ignore God....He will go away?" Well if I were there I would add...."We've already done that....and He has gone away!"
