Do You Understand His Word?

I’ve read Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Series of novels. I believe Asimov has captured something of the essential nature of human striving. Now, Apple wants to produce a film version of his series (trailer here). The characters in these stories really do believe it is necessary to preserve human existence, and are utterly convinced they have the right path.

They are wrong.

Against this urgent call for the preservation of what they regard as the essence of civilization, I make the same call as the prophets of old: It’s all vanity. The only hope is to abandon what mankind imagines is greatness and seek the Lord.

Civilization will be forgotten when Christ returns. Nothing mankind strives to do now will be remembered. Do you grasp that? All the good things God has ever promised are entirely possible without civilization. Everything humanity has done to advance will not change anything that matters; we remain fallen humans who tend to reject God and His Word. We remain on the path to Hell. Learn to think of the likes of such grand visions as the Foundation Series as a lie from Satan. All of it is vanity; Solomon had that right.

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:
Fear God and keep His commandments,
For this is man’s all.
For God will bring every work into judgment,
Including every secret thing,
Whether good or evil. (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14)

The Lord is not building civilization. He builds only the family, the covenant community of faith. It ends there. If we gain that by His power, we have obeyed, and our place in Eternity is secure. Nothing else matters.

Everything around us will end terribly. We remain faithful to our commitments made in the name of the Lord, even as we see the whole thing dissolving into dust. How easy it is to forget that this is the Word of God, that this cynicism is exactly what God wants for you. Sure, we play along with human aspirations, but only so that we may manifest His eternal truth against the backdrop of human futility. We do it because that’s what it means to reverence the Lord and keep His commandments.

Until you can invest your whole heart into the Spirit Realm, and learn to care nothing at all for human aspirations, you do not know God and His Word.