by Al Sanders
GOD’S Jinal TRIUMPH
I T was Dwight L. Moody who force fully declared, “I look upon this world as a wrecked vessel whose de struction is getting nearer and near er. One day God said to me, ‘Moody, here’s a lifeboat. You go out and save as many as you can before the crash comes!’ ” This call is even more im perative today. The world is swept up in tumultuous waves of the so- called new morality. Actually it isn’t new at all but rather man’s open and old rejection of God’s perfect laws, the ten commandments, and his efforts directed toward breaking any connection with the Lord. As an ex ample, Dr. Joseph Fletcher, profes sor of Ethics at the Episcopal Theo logical Seminary at Cambridge Uni versity, cynically declared: “It is necessary to throw away all the ta boos and guidelines of the past, leav ing only the law of love to govern human actions. We need to keep in mind that in some situations un married love can be infinitely more moral than married love; lying, more Christian than telling the tru th ; stealing, better than respecting pri vate property.” Perhaps no portion of God’s Word more aptly describes the desperate condition we find in the world today than the 2nd Psalm. Quite a contrast may be observed between the first two Psalms. Psalm One begins with the word blessed, and ends with the heathen. The Second Psalm begins with the heathen and ends with the word blessed. Being such a relatively short chapter, an easy outline divides up this second Psalm into four con venient and n a tu ra l three-verse stanzas. Unlike most Psalms, too, there are a number of different speakers from whom we hear. In the first verse we find two pene
trating questions, the first of which is, “Why do the heathen rage?” We need to keep in mind that the word heathen actually represents the na tions. By this the application is not to just a few countries around the land of Israel but rather it is indi cative of world-wide restlessness in every part of the globe. This raging reminds us pictorially of storms at high sea, in which, as the waves are tossed by the wind, the whole ocean literally seems to boil. The second question which aptly describes today’s situation is, “Why do the people imagine a vain thing?” In the original language, we see man’s complete and utter futility in living apart from God. It shows the sheer foolishness of an individual who would rule the Lord out. It gives us a graphic-picture of the situation which unfortunately prevails today. I was much impressed in reading a modern parallel translation of the first few verses of the 5th chapter of the little epistle of James. It cer tainly fits these difficult times in our American way of life. Consider these forceful words, “Go to now, ye sophisticated Ba bel builders, with bricks made of the same clay as yourselves. Weep and howl for the miseries you have brought upon yourselves. Your dol lars are inflated; your stocks and bonds represent a false economy, your gold standard is swept away, and the souls of men whom you have destroyed to achieve such empty luxuries will rise in judgment against you. You have directed all your ener gies towards security and world peace. Behold, the nations who have looked to you for spiritual leadership have been nothing but the husks of hypocrisy rustling in the winds of 3
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