According to American intelligence officials, China’s spy balloon program is part of a global surveillance effort to collect information on the military capabilities of countries around the world.

Surveillance balloons, like China’s spy balloons, have advantages over satellites: they can fly closer to the earth and drift with wind patterns that are not as predictable to militaries and intelligence agencies. They can also hover over areas and their cameras can produce clearer images than those on orbital satellites. We now know that Beijing has used such airships to probe American airspace in the past—one other time under President Biden and three under former President Trump. China’s spy balloons have been spotted over five continents in total.

Did China’s spy balloons break international law?

Unlike satellites which travel in space, balloons are like other aircraft in that they are subject to international aviation law. According to such law, a nation’s airspace is sovereign territory that cannot be entered without express permission. As a result, surveillance balloons are clear violations of national sovereignty when they enter another country’s airspace.

In other news, Dutch prosecutors said yesterday that it was likely that Russian President Vladimir Putin signed off on a decision to supply missile systems to pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine in 2014. The long-range anti-aircraft missiles were then used to shoot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in July of that year, killing all 298 passengers and crew.

This attack was an obvious violation (PDF) of international law, one for which individuals and states are both responsible.

“If everybody got their time from somebody else”

These stories illustrate this fact: laws do not have the intrinsic power to change character. For example, America has more laws than ever, but murder rates are 30 percent higher than they were in 2019; other kinds of crime, including thefts and robberies, increased last year as well.

Laws can prevent illegal activity so long as they can be proactively enforced, but they do not by themselves alter human nature. Individuals and nations will still do what they consider to be in their best interest. Most will adhere to laws that prevent or alter their intentions only when they must.

Do you obey speed limits because you have an intrinsic desire to do whatever the authorities advise or because you don’t want to get a ticket for speeding?

Of course, the alternative to laws we feel to be arbitrary and invasive is to have no laws at all.

In my sermon last Sunday, I quoted Dr. Paul Powell: “Man needs some authority in his life. Without duly recognized authority, chaos would soon result in every realm of life.” He cited the Bureau of Standards in Washington, DC, without which we would have no objective measure of weights and measurements. Without these standards, he noted, “inches and pounds would soon shrink or expand according to the wishes of the person doing the measuring. It would not be long until daily business could not be transacted.”

He then pointed to the Naval Observatory, also in Washington, DC, which gives us the correct astronomical time every day at 12 o’clock. What if we did not have such a standard? Dr. Powell answered: “If everyone got their time from somebody else, pretty soon we would have no idea as to what the time really was.”

Is this where our culture is morally?

Four transforming facts

David prayed, “O Lᴏʀᴅ, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am!” (Psalm 39:4). From his prayer we can discern the following facts:

1. We do not know how fleeting our lives really are or how dependent we truly are on our Maker.
2. Only God can reveal this to us in a way that transforms us, which is why David’s words are a prayer rather than an observation.
3. If we will not ask God to show us our need for his help, we will waste our time and our lives.
4. If we will make David’s prayer ours, we will use our time and lives well in response.

For example, as a result of his prayer, David could say to God, “I am a sojourner with you, a guest, like all my fathers” (v. 12). This is a powerful metaphor for life on this transitory planet. We are all guests here. Accordingly, we must not invest our souls where they will not live permanently.

I often note that self-sufficiency is spiritual suicide. The contrary is true as well: Spirit-sufficiency is spiritual victory.

“Never interpret your numbness as his absence”

When Abraham offered Isaac (Genesis 22), God intervened and Isaac became a progenitor of the Jewish nation. The theologian Origen (c. 185–c. 253) noted: “Abraham offered to God his mortal son who did not die; God gave up his immortal Son who died for all of us.”

Will you trust such a loving God with your life today?

In Revelation 3, Jesus tells his people, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me” (v. 20). Commenting on this transforming promise, Max Lucado writes: “The world rams at your door; Jesus taps at your door. The voices scream for your allegiance; Jesus softly and tenderly requests it.

“Which voice do you hear? There is never a time that Jesus is not speaking. There’s never a room so dark that the ever-present, ever-pursuing, relentlessly tender Father is not there, tapping gently on the doors of our hearts—waiting to be invited in.

“Few hear his voice. Fewer still open the door. But never interpret your numbness as his absence. He says, ‘Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age’ (Matthew 28:20). ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you’ (Hebrews 13:5). Never” (his italics).

Will you open your life to his lordship today?

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Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg fell asleep during President Obama’s 2015 State of the Union address. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripped up a copy of President Trump’s 2020 speech after he finished his address. And networks cut away from President Clinton’s 1997 address to air the OJ Simpson verdict.

I saw no such noteworthy events last night during (or after) President Biden’s speech, in which he highlighted progress during his years in office and sought to sell Americans on his economic plans for the future.

However, if the past is prologue, the president should not expect to see significant results from his speech. According to Gallup’s Jeffrey M. Jones, “Historical data suggests these speeches rarely affect a president’s public standing in a meaningful way, despite the amount of attention they receive.”

And yet the Washington Post reports that the president had “the largest audience any US politician will have all year, absent some catastrophe that would require him to give a very different kind of prime-time address.”

Why do so many of us watch? The answer is actually relevant far beyond last night’s speech.

“You gave your word to his boss”

In Clear and Present Danger, a 1994 movie adapted from a Tom Clancy novel, Harrison Ford plays CIA analyst Jack Ryan. In one scene, he relates troubling news he has discovered regarding governmental corruption to National Security Advisor Jim Greer, played by James Earl Jones. Ryan says, “I’m afraid if I dig any deeper no one’s going to like what I find.”

Greer responds, “You took an oath, if you recall, when you first came to work for me. And I don’t mean to the National Security Advisor of the United States. I mean to his boss, and I don’t mean the president. You gave your word to his boss: you gave your word to the people of the United States.”

Jim Greer was right. Unlike 70 percent of the world living under dictatorships, in the United States, our president and other elected leaders work for the people who elected them. That’s why the president tried last night to impress us with his work and why we watched his speech to decide whether or not we agree.

The annual State of the Union address illustrates the “golden rule” in our fallen world: “Whoever has the gold makes the rules.” In the case of democracy (“the power of the people”), the people have the “gold” of cultural authority and thus make the cultural “rules.” And as Jesus said, “From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required” (Luke 12:48 NRSV).

Self-governance requires the ability to govern the self. Therein lies our system of government’s greatest opportunity and its greatest challenge.

“Truth has stumbled in the public squares”

In a recent survey, 81 percent of Americans said humankind is inherently good. As a result, our postmodern culture believes we should tolerate another person’s moral choices so long as they do not harm others. However, as Scripture notes, “Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward” (Job 5:7). This is why Jesus said we must be “born again” (John 3:3).

In Isaiah 59 the prophet states, “Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God” (v. 2). He then identifies specific consequences of this “separation.” Do any of these describe our culture?

• “Your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity” (v. 3a). Does this bring abortion to mind?
• “Your lips have spoken lies” (v. 3b). Does this relate to our “post-truth” culture and our redefinitions of marriage and gender identity?
• “No one enters suit justly; no one goes to law honestly” (v. 4). Does this describe our escalating governmental and corporate corruption?
• “Their feet run to evil, and they are swift to shed innocent blood” (v. 7). Does this relate to racial injustice today?

Consequently, “We grope for the wall like the blind; we grope like those who have no eyes; we stumble at noon as in the twilight” (v. 10).  This is because “truth has stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter” (v. 14).

The prophet then states our only hope: “A Redeemer will come to Zion” (v. 20).

“Leave the rest to God”

Numerous retrospectives on President Ronald Reagan were published Monday on the 112^th anniversary of his birthday. One article, written by a columnist who worked for the former president, identified “the secret of who he was” in his life motto: “Live simply, love generously, care deeply, speak kindly, leave the rest to God.”

Of course, to do the first four well, we need the help of the One to whom we “leave the rest.” As we noted yesterday, we must know Christ before we can truly make him known. This is why a daily encounter with the living Lord Jesus is so vital for our souls and for our society.

John Eldredge writes: “Henri Nouwen once asked Mother Teresa for spiritual direction. Spend one hour each day in adoration of your Lord, she said, and never do anything you know is wrong.” To do the second, we need the power of the first.

If “one hour each day” seems unrealistic, how much time will you spend in “adoration of your Lord” today?

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