THINKING THE UNTHINKABLE

From My Perspective - - - 

The Broadway Play, Man of La Mancha, opened in 1965. The play tells the story of the mad"knight, Don Quixote, as a play within a play, performed by Cervantes and his fellow prisoners as he awaits a hearing with the Spanish Inquisition. The principal song emerging from the play is The Impossible Dream (Lyrics by Joe Darion). In this song, Quixote explains his quest and the reasons behind it. Some of the Lyric expresses the thoughts and desires of Quixote: “To dream the impossible dream; To fight the unbeatable foe; To bear with unbearable sorrow; To run where the brave dare not go; To right the un-rightable wrong…This is my quest…No matter how hopeless…To fight for the right without question or pause; To be willing to march into Hell for a heavenly cause…And the world will be better for this; That one man, scorned and covered with scars; Still strove with his last ounce of courage; To reach the unreachable star.”

Fast forward from the Spanish Inquisition to the political campaign of 2008 and the quest of the candidate Barack Obama: “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” Can it be said with this quest, that “the world will be better for this; That one man, scorned and covered with scars; Still strove with his last ounce of courage; To reach the unreachable…?” Who would have thought the unthinkable that the United States would become entrenched in an 18 Trillion Dollar Deficit; disrespect and apprehension internationally by friend and foe alike; renewed racial divide internally and openly being expressed; ignoring of the United States Constitution; the undermining of law enforcement; departure from moral values and foundational principles? Is the nation and world “better for this”? 

From a Biblical and eternal perspective, how does the Creator view the world? Does He see it as being “better for this” by the things the nation and world has embraced? How would He view the behaviors that are legally endorsed - behaviors such as abortion; same gender marriage; euthanasia; homosexuality; and the general quest of mankind? In a different historical time, where there were similar activities and behaviors, the Bible states what God saw and what God did. Genesis 6 gives us the summary of God’s thoughts versus man’s thoughts (Verses 5 and 6): “The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart…” This resulted in God’s cleansing of the earth with a flood. Only Noah and his family, secured in the Ark, was spared. 

How does God view His world today? Matthew 24:37-39 indicates, “…For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” How is the overall behavior of the human race being seen and observed by a Holy God? Matthew 15:18-19 allows us this insight: “But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders. These are the things which defile the man…” It seems as though we have rapidly become a world that allows itself to think the unthinkable as it ignores God and His righteousness. Consider once again the words of Genesis 6:5-6 (NLT), “The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart.” The horror of the consequence for a world that had squeezed God and His Word out of their culture: “…everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil.” (MSG): “God saw that human evil was out of control. People thought evil, imagined evil - evil from morning to night. God was sorry that he had made the human race…it broke his heart.” A world that deliberately allows itself to think the unthinkable and do the undoable grieves the heart of God and will result in irreversible condemnation. Consider these things with me.