Phil Robertson is known to millions for his role in the hit A&E reality series Duck Dynasty. But he was also known for his devout Christian faith and evangelistic passion. Just before his death on May 25 at age seventy-nine, he told his granddaughter, “Full strength ahead!”
Like Phil Robertson, you and I are facing a future we cannot control. Consider some AI-related stories in the news as examples: from autonomous weapons to the threat of a fake bioterrorist attack to proliferating scam emails, we are entering a technological world most of us do not understand and have no agency to affect.
You and I can do nothing about many of the threats we face, but we can choose courage over fear.
How do we do so?
The answer could not be more countercultural.
“I wanted to find my own God”
A recent New York Times article caught my eye: “I Searched the World’s Holiest Places for a God.” The author explained: “I wanted to find my own god,” so “I went seeking places that exuded certain energies of the spirit.” She visited “holy” sites around the world, finding them to be “places where spirits dwell,” but decided that faith is “a step into the darkness” with “the hope of a safe landing, of salvation.”
We ought not be surprised that a consumer-based culture seeks to find our “own god” as a means to our end. Thirty percent of Americans consult astrology, tarot cards, or fortune tellers in a quest to help their careers or gain greater control over their lives. Americans also collectively spend more than $2 billion a year on psychic services.
The self-reliance that beats at the heart of the American psyche is happy to seek spirituality as a transaction with God or the gods for our personal advancement. However, there is a nefarious and even deadly strategy at work here.
The pastor Tone Benedict is right: “Satan’s goal is not to get you to believe in him. It’s to get you to believe in you.”
The “Tomb of the Royal Steward”
In Isaiah 22, the prophet warned the people that the Lord “has taken away the covering of Judah” (v. 8). When he “called for weeping and mourning, for baldness and wearing sackcloth” for their many sins (v. 12), they responded with “joy and gladness, killing oxen and slaughtering sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine” (v. 13a) and said flippantly, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” (v. 13b).
The Lord focused his judgment especially on a man named Shebna who was “over the household” (v. 15). The title is equivalent to a president’s chief of staff today; he likely had power second only to the king himself.
Accordingly, Shebna had “cut out here a tomb for yourself . . . on the height and carved a dwelling for yourself in the rock” (v. 16). However, “the Lᴏʀᴅ will hurl you away violently, O you strong man” (v. 17) and “thrust you from your office” (v. 19). In his place, God would elevate “my servant Eliakim the son of Hilkiah” (v. 20) and “he will become a throne of honor to his father’s house” (v. 23). This Eliakim would then serve faithfully in the king’s cabinet (cf. Isaiah 36:3, 22, 37:2).
An elaborate tomb discovered in the village of Silwan outside Jerusalem is probably the very tomb of Shebna to which the text refers. Called the “Tomb of the Royal Steward,” it was discovered in 1874, along with inscriptions in ancient Hebrew that are in the British Museum today.
Here we find further evidence for the historical reliability of God’s word, but also for the disastrous consequences of self-reliant presumption. As wise King Solomon noted, “Unless the Lᴏʀᴅ builds the house, those who build it labor in vain” (Psalm 127:1).
Are you building tombs or mansions?
There is something in us that wants to leave a legacy, to live a life of significance, to make a mark that will last when we are gone. We inscribe the names of our deceased loved ones on their headstones, less for practical purposes (we know where they are buried) than to tell the world that they lived and that they mattered.
This quest for significance is a signal of transcendence, a sign pointing from the temporal to the eternal. However, it is best fulfilled not by carving elaborate tombs for ourselves in this life but by using this world for the world to come.
God’s word states: “Here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:14; cf. Psalm 39:12; Hebrews 11:13). Accordingly, “our citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20), where “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9 NKJV).
When we use the temporal for the eternal, repenting of self-reliant presumption and submitting each day to the power and leading of God’s Spirit (Ephesians 5:18), he uses us not to build tombs in this world but mansions in the world to come (cf. John 14:2 NKJV).
Which is more worthwhile?
When life isn’t fair
The story is told of a missionary couple returning to America after twenty-five years of service in Africa. They left with broken health and no pension and felt discouraged and afraid. As it turned out, President Theodore Roosevelt was returning on the same ship from a hunting expedition. Everyone on board tried to catch a glimpse of the famous man; no one noticed the elderly couple.
When their ship docked, a brass band played to welcome the president, but no one was there to greet the missionaries. The husband was discouraged and angry, telling his wife, “It isn’t fair. We have given our lives in service to God, and now we’re home, but no one seems to care.” He was so frustrated that his wife encouraged him to get alone with God to deal with his anger.
He did, and came back a different person. He was smiling and radiated the joy of the Lord. His wife asked him what happened. He explained: “I told God, ‘We served you all these years, and now we’re home, and there is no one to greet us. We’re home, and no one even knows us. It’s not fair.’”
Then the Lord touched my heart and said, “Son, you are not home yet.”
Nor are you.
Why is this reminder relevant for you today?
Quote for the day:
“Time is short. Eternity is long. It is only reasonable that this short life be lived in the light of eternity.” —Charles Spurgeon
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