The earth mourns and dries up, and the land wastes away and withers. Even the greatest people on earth waste away. The earth suffers for the sins of its people, for they have twisted God’s instructions, violated his laws, and broken his everlasting covenant. Therefore, a curse consumes the earth. Its people must pay the price for their sin. [[Isaiah 24:4-6 (NLT)]
Created in 1947 by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the Doomsday Clock’s purpose is to show the world how close it is to destroying itself with technology. Midnight on the clock indicates world-wide catastrophe and the end of the world as we know it. When it was reset for 2022 last week, the good news is that it’s no closer to midnight than last year. The bad news is that we remain at doom’s doorstep with only 100 seconds until midnight!
In 1947, the clock was initially set at seven minutes before midnight. After the Soviet Union tested their first atomic bomb in 1949, it was reset to three minutes before the hour. In 1953, when I was six and in first grade, it was down to just two minutes before midnight. Along with school fire drills, we regularly had air-raid drills where we were to “duck and cover” under our desks in case of atomic attack. In 1991, with the end of the Cold War, the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the clock’s hands were set back to seventeen minutes before the hour. By 1995, it had crept up to 14 minutes and, by 2002, it was at 7 minutes to midnight.
When the clock started 75 years ago, the greatest threat to humanity seemed to be from nuclear weapons but, by 2007, the Bulletin’s scientists recognized the possibility of catastrophic disruptions to life from climate change and global warming and the clock moved up 2 more minutes. Today, along with the world’s vulnerability to nuclear war and climate shifts, the Bulletin considers the perils of biological threats and disruptive technology such as cyber terrorism and the spread of false and misleading information over the internet.
Last year, our nation saw record-breaking heat waves, wildfires that destroyed nearly 7.7 million acres, and life-threatening floods. For the second year in a row (and the third time since 2005), we had to move into the Greek alphabet to name all of our hurricanes. We saw how vulnerable we are to cyber warfare in May when a cyber-attack took down the largest fuel pipeline in the U.S. A year ago, when our Capitol was attacked, we saw firsthand the results of misinformation and baseless rhetoric in the digital age. We’ve seen a decade of rising tension among the nine nations capable of atomic attack as various leaders flex their muscles and make threats. Yet, we know that a nuclear war can never be won by either side; in the end, everyone loses. We don’t need esteemed scientists and Nobel prize winners to tell us our world is in peril; one glance at the news tells us that. But, I wonder, do we realize how close we are to destroying God’s creation altogether?
The scientists behind the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists have been warning the world for 75 years and, for the most part, their warnings have fallen on deaf ears. National Geographic compared the Bulletin’s scientists to the “Biblical bad-news prophet Hosea, preaching a warning of doom to a distracted, if not disinterested, people.” It wasn’t just Hosea who warned the people of looming destruction—so did men like Joel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Amos, and Zephaniah and yet their warnings were ignored. Will we do the same?
Nevertheless, as long as our own little corner of the world keeps plugging along, most of us carry on as if we don’t have a care in the world. But what of our children and our children’s children? Time is running out. Ducking under a desk wouldn’t have saved me back in 1953 and it certainly won’t help us tomorrow if the clock’s minute hand reaches the twelve. Do we really think we can escape the consequences of our cavalier attitude and irresponsible actions? God set us in His world to “tend and watch over it,” not to be part of its destruction. Even though we each have contributed to this situation, we also can be part of the solution! There still is time!
The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children. [Dietrich Bonhoeffer]
When learning to walk, a toddler takes a lot of falls and is likely to get some bumps and bruises along the way. Yet, if we ever want the little guys to walk (let alone run or jump), we need to let them fall once in a while. That’s the only way they’ll ever learn how to how pick themselves up again. Blunders and mistakes are how children learn—they’ll spill milk before they can drink from a cup, scribble outside the lines (and on the table) with their first crayons, have several pairs of wet pants before they’re completely potty-trained, and put their shoes on the wrong feet several times before they know left from right! A few mishaps are all part of growing up.
Yesterday’s devotion got me thinking more about the movie War Room. Elizabeth is a woman whose marriage is crumbling and Miss Clara is a fervent prayer warrior. Clara could easily have done her “Christian duty” for Elizabeth by offering to pray for the young woman’s marriage in her “war room” of prayer. Instead, Clara asks Elizabeth to give her one hour a week and offers to teach her how to fight for her marriage with the right weapons. With her offer, Clara lays herself open to rejection, being called a busybody (or worse) and the inconvenience and challenges that come whenever we become enmeshed in another person’s messy life. In short, Clara does more than pray for this troubled woman—she takes action.
Prayer is calling on God’s power; it’s like calling in the big guns to fight the battle. When doubt in the efficacy of prayer sneaks in, however, it’s more like calling in the big guns but not believing they’re loaded with enough ammunition. I am often like the father in Mark 9 who qualified his request that Jesus heal his son by saying, “If you can.” Like that father, I profess to believe but I need God to help me believe more! Sometimes, the enemy sneaks into my heart and causes me to doubt both the ammunition and God’s aim.
When a service group recently asked a young friend if she would serve on their board of directors, her response was that she’s not qualified since she’s “just a mother.” Her response reminded me of when I once thought of myself as “just” a mother. Many years ago, long before Facebook or LinkedIn, I received a questionnaire prepared by my high school’s reunion committee. Along with personal questions like marital status, it asked about my education, jobs, achievements, and awards. Once returned, the responses were Xeroxed, bound, and returned to us prior to our 25th reunion.
Many stories, novels, operas, musicals, and movies have been based on the theme of selling one’s soul to the devil. In Christopher Marlowe’s 1592 play, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, a brilliant scholar who’s sure he’s learned all there is to know by conventional means turns to magic and ends up summoning the devil Mephistopheles. The two agree that, after Faustus has enjoyed twenty-four years of absolute power (with Mephistopheles as his servant), his soul will belong to Lucifer. When the handsome Dorian sells his soul so that he will never age in The Picture of Dorian Gray, he enters into a lifestyle of debauchery. While Dorian remains handsome, his picture changes to reflect the immoral and sinful life he’s led. In the 1968 horror movie Rosemary’s Baby, the naïve Rosemary discovers that her husband sold both his soul and her womb to Satan for riches and career success. As expected, none of those tales end well. The Devil and Daniel Webster, however, does but only because of the eloquence of the famed lawyer and statesman Daniel Webster.
