Thank you, Lord, for this day. May it be used for your glory!
Good morning and welcome to another Thursday update! This week, I wanted to talk about a strange question I’ve been pondering and figured I would curse y’all with it too.
What would a city totally absent of God look like? Or in other words, a city that is 100% under the control of the devil.
I told you it was a weird question.
We talked about this in our small group the other night and it is definitely an interesting thought experiment. Well, not interesting, per se, it’s actually a rather sad idea.
But what would your answer be?
A city totally depraved filled with all sorts of debauchery? Perhaps another Sodom and Gomorrah?
For those unfamiliar or who don’t remember, Sodom and Gomorrah were two cities in the Old Testament that were so wicked God destroyed the entire cities. The only person saved was Lot, Abraham’s nephew, and he was only saved because Abraham fervently prayed for him.
Another Sodom and Gomorrah could totally be the answer. A town without God could be a town full of wickedness and evil.
Here’s the problem, though. Wouldn’t those cities eventually crumble? Selfishness and evil brutality can only advance a city so far, right? God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, but eventually, they would have destroyed themselves.
I’m not a sociologist so I’m just speculating here. But if everyone is purely wicked, then no one would be united, the town would be filled with pure chaos, and the whole town would be destroyed from the inside out.
I’m not saying that’s not the answer, but let me throw another possible solution to this question.
What if a city without God is a city that is actually “perfect” in almost every way?
A city where everyone is nice to each other and looks out for each other. A city where everyone is wealthy, there are no homeless, and everyone has the perfect job, spouse, and house? A city where everyone is content and therefore assumes they don’t need God.
Where is the depravity in such a city?
The depravity is that all these people in this “perfect” city never hear the gospel, and thus they ultimately worship their own gods, whether it be themselves, their jobs, their family, or some other god.
That’s a scary-sounding city to me. If you have a very broken city full of crime and destruction, it’s easy to show people that there is a better way of living; that Jesus Christ can heal, save, and protect.
What about people who don’t think they need any healing, saving, or protection?
This sounds odd, but one of the worries I see in the crypto world is that we will approach this world one day. To create a world where everyone has financial freedom, no sickness, no issues, and we live forever on Earth (or Mars).
Did you know there are companies right now working on figuring out how to increase the life span to 400 years? And companies working on computer chips to go in your brain to do all sorts of cool things like communicate with telepathy or give paralyzed victims a chance to communicate again?
The average life expectancy has gone up and up drastically over the last 50 years and some theorize the average age in the next 20 years could reach over 100 years old!
Will people finally look internally? Will they finally look away from the brokenness of the world to see their own brokenness and finally realize they need a savior?
Or will the distractions of the world create a place totally devoid of the gospel?
A world where no one “needs” God because everything is “taken care of.”
That’s the world I truly fear.
Please don’t get me wrong, I truly hope that crypto can help many of the poor countries in the world like it already is. I really really do. I hope these companies are successful in eradicating the sickness and brokenness of the world! I hope we see people living on Mars one day. That one would just be cool!
I also know and believe that God didn’t promise us wholeness in this world, but in the next greater, bigger, and more spectacular one. A world with no sin, brokenness, or death. One where we get to see the creator of the universe face to face!
I don’t know about you, but that sounds better than communicating with telepathy until we’re 400 years old.
And if we do end up creating an Earth where people can live to 400, speak with thoughts, and never get sick…I just hope that it will allow people to spend more time with God, not the distractions of this world.
Ok, those were some odd thoughts, but the goal is just to make you think a little as the week is coming to a close.
Trying to save this world and protect the people in it are noble things that I think Jesus would approve of.
The issue is when we focus so much on saving this world that we ignore God’s promises of a new world that He has mercifully allowed us to enter through the saving faith of Jesus Christ.