A Dangerous World

A month ago I blogged about warnings coming from British military chiefs of staff about the nation’s lack of preparedness to face dangers from outside.

We now know the reality of what they were talking about. Threats to us as a nation, and threats to us as individuals, exist on many fronts.

The attempted assassination of two people in Salisbury was carried out with total disregard for the safety of others who might be contaminated by the substance used.

Terrorism raises its ugly head again across the Channel, bringing memories of atrocities in London just a year ago.

Cyber threats menace the security of our data and, indeed, our wealth.

Although there is no clear evidence that our streets are becoming more violent, crimes against the person are a constant and recurring issue in the news. Even if you are simply minding your own business, you can never feel entirely safe these days.

It is very hard for us today to know quite how to react. It’s easy to exclaim, 

“It wouldn’t happen anywhere near me”. 

For people in Bible times, though, the dangers were very real. God’s people were surrounded by enemies. Their Promised Land was a highway through which attackers could come in their quest to become superpowers – those from the north taking on the nations to the south and vice versa. Israel was too often the minnow in the middle which could be plundered, her crops raided as passing armies sought to feed themselves. Violence, starvation, destruction and captivity beckoned continually.

God’s people were used to hearing (as we are not) that God is a refuge for those who belong to Him. He is the ultimate fixer. One day He will bring universal justice about and bring low the pride of those who oppress His people.

But those who claim the Almighty as their God should not be too complacent. Many were using the safety they had in God as a cover for abuse – taking advantage of those weaker than they. The prophet Amos gives a vivid picture of how they could find to their horror that the judgment of Judgment Day began at them.

“Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord!

Why would you have the day of the Lord?

It is darkness, and not light,

as if a man fled from a lion,

and a bear met him,

or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall,

and a serpent bit him.

Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light,

and gloom with no brightness in it?”

(Amos 5:18-20 ESV)

A man flees from a lion only to be met by a bear. Then he fancies he has finally found safety within the four walls of his house, only to put his hand where a snake is lurking unseen. It then bites him. What he was counting on to be the Day of the Lord is actually curtains for him.

One of the reasons why I believe in God is that there has to be a Power that will ultimately bring justice for the weak and powerless – even if it happens after their lifetimes. How unbelievers can avoid being frustrated, raging uselessly against the evils and injustice in the world, I do not know. Without God, the weak have no champion.

God is our refuge and strength,

a very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,

though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,

though its waters roar and foam,

though the mountains tremble at its swelling.

(Psalm 46:1-3)

God my Helper can suddenly turn into a dangerous enemy if His help is taken lightly. He is to be respected as well as looked to for help. But a true help He is to those who respect Him. Even His weakness – the weakness of the Man hanging on the cross – is stronger than the strength of men.

O safe to the Rock that is higher than I,

My soul in its conflicts and sorrows would fly,

So sinful, so weary, Thine, Thine would I be,

Thou blest Rock of Ages, I’m hiding in Thee!

William Orcutt Cushing, 1823-1903.

Boasting

Boasting is not regarded as a socially accepted activity, but it happens. Someone will loudly advertise his or her skills and achievements and thereby risk being regarded as a bore, someone to keep well away from at a party – that is, unless you feel that by getting close to that person you can use their influence to further your own cause. 

Though they have never claimed as much, it is thought that the Russians are sending out a proud boast to the world by means of their assumed behaviour in my home city of Salisbury. South Wiltshire is normally a quiet rural area where not very much happens, but is now the centre of worldwide attention because of the recent attack on a former Russian colonel and his daughter by means of a nerve agent. The attackers seem to be proclaiming, “If you step out of line, we can hit you no matter where in the world you may try to flee.” The power of Russia to control events right around the world is therefore being boasted of.

Rulers of empires in Bible times were very much given to boasting too. They had enormous statues made of themselves under which they listed in bombastic detail all the territories they had conquered and all the projects completed. The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley imagined one of these in his poem “Ozymandias”:

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:

'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away."

Shelley had a healthy disrespect for the bloated pointlessness of this boasting. With the ravages of time it crumbles into dust. God’s people were just as sceptical and with very good reason: their trust was in God, the King of kings and Lord of lords. Listen to the reply of David the shepherd boy when mighty Goliath boasted of his gods:

“You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied ... that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the Lord's, and he will give you into our hand.” (1 Samuel 17:45-47 ESV)

Christians can boast, too, not necessarily in a God of battles but in the cross where their champion Jesus wins the victory over sin, death and hell:

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast

Save in the death of Christ, my God:

All the vain things that charm me most

I sacrifice them to His blood.

Isaac Watts, 1674-1748